Yesterday in New York City, the group “United States Artists” announced their list of 50 fellows for 2010. Each fellow receives $50,000.
Among them was poet/translator/professor Khaled Mattawa.
“First of all, I can’t write poetry in any other language. Impossible. I have to write in Arabic because each language has its own history and Arabic is my history. I consider Arabic to be the most beautiful language.”
If you’re looking for it, there are a number of places to seek out excellent Arab American poets. They are celebrated individually (Khaled Mattawa just won a major poetry award) and as a group, as in the most recent Banipal (38).
Although the news was released last week, I saw it just this morning, (thanks to Franklin Lewis).
So: مبروك ya Khaled!
